More and more modern buildings built in the recent decades use panels to cover the exterior of the buildings as they provide a contemporary look to the buildings. In addition, the use of panels may increase the speed in completing the buildings. Panels may be made of materials like metal, glass etc.
However, buildings of such designs may be susceptible to explosive forces and the panels may be damaged and even cause injury to occupants of the buildings. A glass panel may shatter under the impact of the explosive force and shards or broken fragments of the glass panel may damage property and/or injure or kill people near the glass panel. In recent history, there have been many instances where the explosion is intentionally set off to inflict harm to innocent people, e.g. bomb blast.
With development in technology, the intensity of such explosive force is increasing. A building and its facade may be subjected to an increasing amount of explosive effect. Typically, to counter the higher explosive blast intensity, the blast load capacity of the structure has to be increased. However, practical limitations of the building structure exists and thereby limits the capacity of the building to absorb the higher blast load.
There have been many devices designed to absorb the explosive effects onto the panels of a building. However, many of such devices are bulky and difficult to install. As such, panels with such devices may affect the facade of the building. Difficulty in the installation of the panels may result in the use of large equipment for the installation of the devices and panels onto the buildings.
Further, each of these devices do not cater to the range of blast load that can be absorbed by the devices. Usually, to cater to different level of explosive load, a plurality of devices each having different blast load capacity has to be made. As such, it is costly to fabricate and store the plurality of devices.
The present invention aims to overcome or reduce the problems as described above.